“LYNE” The Great Mood Stabilizer

Linux advocate, born in Liverpool, grew up in Cork City Ireland and currently living in Corvallis, Oregon. I love all things Linux, my favorite distro being Ubuntu followed closely by Kubuntu and Linux Mint (Cinnamon and KDE). As far as I'm concerned Linux is the future of gaming. Lets make the world as open and transparent as we can!

Intro: Tonight I was in the mood for something incredibly chill. I didn’t want time limits or races, I didn’t want distraction or guns or loud noises. I didn’t even want to use my brain more than really necessary. It was with great pleasure I found Lyne.

Gameplay

This is one of the most basic of the basic games. The first level teaches you to draw a line from one end to the other. I got the point quite easily. Connect the shapes.

It gets more complicated as you go along. Level 24 and 25 teach you how to not cross the streams.

It does not, however, get more stressful. It’s perfect beauty is in its simplicty. Want to go back to a certain puzzle? No problem! Just click on the number of the puzzle and you get the menu

Starting the game was a touch 80’s. It will not automatically detect your resolution, you need to pick. You can also choose windowed mode, or fullscreen if you want an uninterrupted appearance. If you choose a route you cannot utilize, it doesn’t punish you even then. It simply won’t let you do it. A thin red line indicates a shape you cannot go through.

What I really liked was that although there is a best way to solve the puzzle, there is no perfect way. There isn’t even a counter for your score. When you pass a level, the number of the puzzle in the menu turns white and you can move on.

Graphics

This game has a limited range of colors and shapes. Going through puzzle 25 I saw only 6 colors and 3 shapes. All the colors are pastels, very soothing and quiet to the senses. It is completely 2d, no advanced graphics engine necessary.

Sound

The music is a collection of soft synthetic sounds that do not intrude on the mood you have created. The sounds will lead into one another and as long as you are drawing lines, the music continues. When you stop drawing lines it softly fades away letting you know that you have all the time in the world to figure it out. There are absolutely no rattling sounds, beeps, or buzzes.

Overall

I thoroughly enjoyed sitting around in my robe and fuzzy bunny slippers sipping on a fizzy drink and relaxing. This would be even better if I turned the sound off (yes you can do that!) and listened to Enya on my headphones. Having this on my desktop screen allowed my eyes to relax as well. Relax all the way to…